Art on the wire: Dodie Eisenhauer and her daughter create wire art and jewelry, and this year, they began making it for the Smithsonian Institution

A local woman is out to make her craft shop "one of the most interesting handcrafted businesses in Missouri."

Dodie Eisenhauer, owner of Village Designs, has been creating wire art since 1985. She began with wire mesh, she explained, then began to experiment.

"I had some wire on hand," Eisenhauer said. "I decided I wanted to make a wreath one day. I made a few links by coiling the wire, just making random coils."

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com

That first piece of art was a little "rough," she admitted, but through trial and error the new ideas began to flow.

When Eisenhauer first began selling her handmade crafts, she was making Christmas decorations, specifically wire mesh angels, then branched out to home decor. Currently among her best-selling items is the "orbanizer."

The wire ball, made out of "springy wire," as Eisenhauer calls it, combines pretty with practical and makes a useful holder for pens, makeup brushes and even kitchen utensils.

"Everybody likes them," Eisenhauer said. "They've become especially popular in the past month. Every show we take them to we sell out."

When her daughter, Jenny Turner, came to work with her in 2010, a new favorite was introduced: jewelry.

The jewelry line, which includes rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings, is called the Springerlee Collection. Turner and Eisenhauer chose this name for its quirky sound.

"When people see the wire we're working with, they always call them 'springs,' so we wanted to reflect that in the name," said Eisenhauer. "Springerlee, which is actually the name of a German cookie, was just really indicative of that shape."

"The actual word looks really good on tags and fliers, too," added Turner. "We even have this really great font so the 'g' looks like a ring."

The jewelry is created using flexible, lightweight silver plated copper. The color combinations range from bright pinks and blues, dyed and airbrushed by Eisenhauer herself, to neutral metallic tones.

They try to be flexible about creating different color combinations for customers, Eisenhauer said, even designing some jewelry with school colors to sell for school fundraisers. "Someone told us they looked like pom-poms once and that just started the fire," she said.

Their biggest break in jewelry came when they received an order from the Smithsonian Institution about a month ago. Eisenhauer said the buyers noticed her table at a wholesale buyer expo she and Turner attended.

"We sell to some big libraries, like the [Harry S.] Truman library in Missouri and the JFK [John F. Kennedy Presidential] Library in Boston," she said. "But we hope to have a long career with the Smithsonian."

Village Designs will also open their store, Village Designs at Grandma's House, on Highway AA in Daisy for the holiday season from November to December. Eisenhauer said they may feature some new products from other artists, but every item promises to be unique.

"If someone else is doing it, we don't want to do it," she said. "We're original."

To view or purchase any of Eisenhauer's wire art designs, visit www.villagedesigns.com.